I am seeing that Mr. Kamel Gazzah, administrator of the "Msaken DNA project" of FTDNA,is anxiously asking for some light about his mtDNA both on "dna-forums" and "Rootsweb", with nosuccess thus far. Unfortunately both these forums banned me, and I'll try to answer him here. Which is the problem? He had an FGS, now on GenBank and on Ian Logan: HM122274.He is T2b3 and the unique to compare him with is AY495275, European (Coble). His "high resolution"matches on HVRI and II are not very useful, I think. With AY495275 he differs in T195C,G4117C, T13500C, T16263Y and not has the mutation of AY495275 in A13722G. Then they are separated by many thousands of years, but clearly the European retains the basic haplotype,from which he had only a mutation and Gazzah at least 3, not counting the T16263Y not yet fixed.

Now, T2b is overwhelmingly European, T2b3 has on Ian Logan an European and a Tunisian sample, T2b3a has a deep and differentiated presence in Sardinia, like this posting has demonstrated. Then Ithink we can expect that this Tunisian haplotype (like a N1b1 I spoke about in the past, likethe YDNA R1a and R1b, even among a few samples tested), do demonstrate the presence of an European ancestry, that could be Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, during the Roman Empire or more recent.Probably what in the Tunisian mtDNA isn't sub-Saharan is European, most likely Italian.

In conclusion I expect that some FGS will come out from Europe closer to this of Kamel Gazzah.

Certainly Mr. Gazzah wont be satisfied by my forcasts? Then I'll try to say somethingmore careful. Arredi found that Tuscany (partly ancient Etruscans) has all the path of R2/JT, from R2 to many subclades of T1 and T2. Brian Sykes thought that mtDNA T was from "Tara", lived in Tuscany. Amongst the subclades of T2b, Tuscany has T195C.If I was Mr. Gazzah I'd try just in Tuscany the most ancient ancestors, remembering that an Etruscan settlement (among others) is documented in Tunisia.Romans were soldiers and eventually seeded their Y. To find a mitochondrial does mean women, then probably families.